Smoky Black Eyed Pea and Kale Stew

Imagine my shock when Rob called me from the grocery store to tell me they were out of broccoli. It wasn’t even a weekly special. No broccoli in the entire store. I thought new year’s meant more carrots, but maybe it really means broccoli? 😉

In any case, have no fear, I switched recipes and ended up clipping off the last of my garden kale. Yes, there has been snow here for over 2 weeks and yes, hidden underneath the snowy blanket, my kale is still alive and kicking. More power to the kale! (The broccoli dish will have to wait)

Black eyed peas are certainly not just for the new year, but I was drawn to this black eyed pea and kale stew through Random Recipes. This month’s challenge was to randomly select a recipe from a cookbook from someone else’s library. I decided to tackle this electronically. When I saw Ali was giftedSuperfood Kitchen I tried to borrow it from the library, but it hasn’t been received yet. In that moment, I decided that the first recipe I found online from the cookbook would be my “random recipe” and I found it here: Kale and Black Eyed Pea Stew. I like that Julie has incorporated more common “superfoods” into her cookbook, like leafy greens and legumes, which can be seen in this recipe.

This is no ordinary bean and green stew. Along with black eyed peas and kale, there is red pepper as well as my addition of oyster mushrooms. It is a European spice mash-up with oregano and thyme as well as smoked paprika and Ancho chile powder. I was scared to use a full tablespoon of smoked paprika, but feel free to use more because this was not spicy. I ended up adding liquid smoke at the end for a further depth of flavour. But oh, this alone would still be a great chili-like stew, but this it is not. A special twist comes form the addition of ground wakame. A little goes a long way and makes this a unique stew. It brings a certain seaweedy-ness to the stew. By the way, a few notes about my version: I used dried herbs in this recipe because I don’t usually use fresh herbs for a long simmer (they turn to mush, so maybe remove them as a bouquet garni). As well, the recipe calls for 3 cups of cooked black eyed peas but I am fairly confident this dish could be made more simply by cooking dried black eyed peas with the soup broth (which I have not tried but noted in the recipe below).

As you may have noticed, I am still on my smokedpaprikakick. Here are other recipes I have bookmarked:

1. In a large soup pot, melt the coconut oil over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until softened, around 5 minutes. Sprinkle with some salt. Add the garlic and cook for a further 1-2 minutes, until it is fragrant. Stir in the red pepper, oregano and thyme, stirring well to coat. Add the mushrooms, chile powder and smoked paprika, stirring until well coated. Saute for another 10 minutes until the mushrooms are softened and cooked through.

2. Add the vegetable broth, water, ground wakame flakes and beans and simmer for 30 minutes. (I am also convinced you could just add the dried black eyed peas now with a bit more water and just cook until the BEPs are firm to your liking, around 45 minutes).

3. Stir in the kale and continue to simmer for 1-2 minutes, until the kale has slightly wilted and turned a brilliant green. Add the lemon juice, optional liquid smoke, season with salt and pepper and garnish with parsley/cilantro.

I grew up eating black-eyed peas weekly, either straight from my Dad’s garden or dried during winter. My Mom, of course, always cooked them with pork of some sort. I love the idea of smoked paprika carrying that particular chore! Nice recipe.

Delish! I love soupy, stewy and mashed bean recipes because beans lend themselves to being unctuously thick and to just serve them whole seems to be wasting that delicious quality. This stew is going to be tried and tested when our temperatures here in Australia are low enough for me to enjoy it to the max. Cheers for sharing this gorgeous prospective regular visitor to my regular menu 🙂

I hadn’t ever seen snow till I moved here (Tasmania) from mainland Australia and to see it we had to drive up a mountain so no idea what snowshoeing would be like (or skiing for that matter!). We had a really mild winter here in Tasmania and a bad one for the ski slopes as well.

This soup sounds so good–hearty and filling and full of sturdy veg. I never eat black-eyed peas for some reason–even on New Year’s. I think I should get my hands on some and start expanding my legume horizons. 🙂

I am eating black-eyed peas right this very second, for the first time in my life. With broccoli (I’m sorry! 😛 ) and now I really want to make your soup. Also…. the black-eyed peas I’m eating? They were from one of those mega-cans, and, um, I seem to have eaten the entire contents. Lucky me, right? 😉

I know I use this word way too often but this is STUNNING… and what an incredible way to choose your random recipe this month… thank you so much for playing along and being so generous with your link-backs and chain of inspiration… lovely stuff!

[…] nothing bland about this. I love the addition of two different kinds of smoked paprika and cumin (I did not stifle the full amount of smoked paprika and it was ok!). I added in the spinach, because, well, I had […]

[…] weeks back, and I am finally going to share the recipe link with you. I ran across this recipe on Janet’s blog and was so excited to try it. I have been majorly crushing on both kale and black-eyed peas, so I […]

Thank you for this great recipe! It was our new year’s day humble food, and we loved it. The flavors become so complex and satisfying under slow cooking. I tossed in a few other things from the fridge, carrot coins and some homemade kraut. Wonderful!

I just made this dish tonight. I found this site while searching for recipes that would use black eyed peas and kale. I had extra BEP’s from another recipe and I love greens so I googled up recipes that would use both. Did I hit the jackpot!
This dish is great. It go rave reviews from my wife and daughter and my picky son even ate it without struggle. It wasn’t too hard at all and the steps flow well so you can do it without much problem if you have your veggies ready. I can’t wait to try some other things from the site, now.